Dive Brief:
- The food, beverage and grocery industries remain among the leading organizations promoting workplace equality and inclusion for the LGBTQ community, according to the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) 2017 Corporate Equality Index (CEI).
- More than 1,000 companies participated in the 2017 CEI, including 156 Fortune 500 companies. Out of the record-breaking 517 U.S. companies that received 100-point scores, 72 are from the food, beverage and grocery sector.
- The CEI bases its scores on five general categories: non-discrimination policies, employment benefits, demonstrated organizational competency and accountability around LGBTQ diversity and inclusion and public commitment to LGBTQ equality and responsible citizenship, according to the organization's news release.
Dive Insight:
Among the leading organizations CEI 2017 named were several major food and beverage manufacturers: Tyson Foods, WhiteWave, Diageo, Coca-Cola, Barilla, MillerCoors, Brown-Forman, Kellogg, Cargill, General Mills, Hormel, Anheuser-Busch InBev, ConAgra, Campbell, Mondelez, PepsiCo, Pernod Ricard, Hershey and Ben & Jerry's — all of which received 100-point scores. With so many of these companies among the top 50 or 25 in the industry, this demonstrates a clear industry-wide effort to promote LGBTQ workplace rights that organizations like CEI have come to recognize.
Other companies still have far to go on the scorecard. Among the lowest-scoring food and beverage companies were Dean Foods (40), Dole Food Co. (10) and Ingredion (0). All three of these companies' scores remained the same since last year's CEI index, which suggests their LGBTQ company policies also remain unchanged.
Still, while some of the lowest-scoring companies may not have made changes to improve their LGBTQ equality and inclusion practices, many other companies have. Last year's 2016 CEI also saw a record-breaking number of top scorers at 407 companies, including 24 from the food, beverage and grocery sector.
An additional 110 companies achieved top marks this year, and 48 more food, beverage and grocery companies earned 100-point scores this year compared to last year. That means this segment may have accounted for nearly 44% of the new companies to earn the highest scores possible this year.